About a change in behaviour when the sun shines …

Topic Swap … Jij geeft mij een onderwerp om over te pennen, ik geef er jou één. Heidi gaf mij volgende instructies via Twitter : ” oh ja, je krijgt nog eentje. Kun je kiezen. Iedereen gedraagt zich anders als de zon schijnt, iets in die geest... “ Hier gaan we dan …

Zi met Mister IceMan on a rainy day. The sky was grey (if you want to know how grey it was, here’s the hexadecimal code : #C0C0C0) and it was raining (which proved it was a rainy day). They met on a tropical beach on the island of Amore, there was this party going on but Mister IceMan was just sitting in a beach chair, watching the people dancing. Zi started talking to him …

Zi: hi

Mister IceMan: Hey ... How are you ?

Zi: not bad, tx and u

Mister IceMan: Fine ... relaxing

Zi: ah you should be dancing your butt of with the girlies

Mister IceMan: Yeah .. I know ... just watching them dancing

Zi: hmm

Mister IceMan: Where are you from ?

Zi: London

Zi: you?

Mister IceMan: Belgium ... near Liege

They fell in love on that rainy day. He was all sweet with her, funny, attentive, he told her about Belgian breakfast (with beer and choccies) while dancing with her in the rain. She was very attracted to him.

Next time they met again it was pooring … but they didn’t care. Love was their umbrella and Zi enjoyed the sweet kisses Mister Iceman dropped on her cute nose. He drew a big heart in the sand, he bought her red roses and got her a fancy Prada handbag.

The weather stayed bad though on the island of Amore.

The two happy people found a cute house near the beach and they moved in together. Their own love shack, steaming love making and Zi smiling, lying in his arms, together counting the raindrops outside. Life was beautiful and the sky dark and grey …

But one day the sun came back - the first time since they'd met …

Zi came home from shopping and she was all excited. The sun was shining on her skin and it felt good. This lovely weather totally made her feeling happy, she got rid of her clothes and put on her new bikini. She waited outside on the beach for Mister IceMan to come home.

Then he arrived. He was all bad tempered, kicked Fluff the dog and yelled something about breaking someone’s nose. Oh my, what was wrong with him ? He didn’t even notice the sexy bikini she was wearing, rushed into the house, opened 2 Duvels and disappeared.

That night the weather turned bad and Mister IceMan showed up again, all smiling, he hugged her, kissed her, undressed her and made love all night long.

It was a strange thing. Zi figured out after a while that the weather had a big influence on Mister IceMan’s mood and actions. She started to keep track of the relationship between weather and behaviour:

 Mister IceMan being happy, oh my, even singing.

Mister IceMan doing the dishes, cleaning the house, whistling.

Mister IceMan buying Zi a painting, writing poetry, making love to Zi and giving her multiple orgasms.

Uh oh ... Mister IceMan bad tempered, nagging, throwing a stone at Fluff.

Phewww, is that a smile on his face again ?

OH MY GOD !! Mister IceMan with a gun in his hand, shouting  boo at old people, painting his granny blue, robbing a bank, flying Enola Gay and ...

... winning Nobel Prize for literature.

They are still together. The love was big enough to survive. They are happy. The only thing is that Zi is looking at weather forecasts all the time. They moved to rainy Schotland but when the sun is coming out they fly over to rainy Belgium. Mister IceMan stopped reading his favourite newspaper, The Sun, doesn't shower anymore with Sun Light soap, got rid of his favourite book (The sun also rises) and switched the servers at the office from Sun to Intel.

Zi is working on a huge surprise for Mister IceMan. She wants him to be happy. She bought land in the rain forrest.

About Andras Pandy ...

As the evil man is leaving jail for a rest home, I felt like writing this poem :
(don't punch it into Google Translate though, it will crash your computer ... and probably the worldwide web too ...  don't tell me I didn't warn you).

Als zou blijken

Dat de dode lijken

Helemaal niet dood waren

Zou men kunnen bezwaren

Dat de dode lijken

Helemaal geen lijken waren

About official shoe shopping-day ...

Today is “official shoe shopping-day” in Belgium. It’s an important day for the Belgian people, it’s also a bank holiday … except for shoe shops. On shoe shopping day, everyone has to buy at least 2 shoes (called “a pair” in local language). One legged people are allowed to buy only one shoe (“half a pair”) but they have to prove they’ve only one leg so they need to get a leave at the doctor’s.


The week before OSSD, all shoe shops are closed. They’re piling up their stocks to have enough shoes to serve the Belgian people. If they fail, it can be a disaster. Unserved people might become angry and burn the shop down. This is fully understandable as there’s also the shoe police who will check if everyone has bought at least 2 shoes. If you can’t prove this, you might end up in jail.

As the shoe shops are closed, there’s also emergency services for people who lose one or more shoes during that week. Ambulances hold spare shoes in all sizes so a phone call to 100 will fix the problem.

There’s this charity program for people who can’t afford to buy 2 shoes. Every year the rich and the famous organize events to raise money to give to the poor people. Last year it was “shoes across Belgium”, the year before “Shoe aid” …

Official shoe shopping-day is one big party. The day starts with brekkie - normally Belgian people have beer and choccies for breakfast, but at this special day everyone has croissants and fresh fruit juice.

After this people go outside and rush to the shoe stores. Days and weeks before, they have been looking up on new models, browsing on the internet, reading fashion magazines, … Rich people invited fashion consultants and paid them well to get all the information on the latest shoe fashion.

In the afternoon, when all shoe shops are empty, there’s a big shoe parade. At this parade, everyone is wearing shoes – I’m not exaggerating – everyone !! The day ends with a real barbecue (with burn wounds and stuff) and a big party. Everyone gets badly drunk …

Official shoe shopping-day is big in Belgium. It’s bigger then Christmas and Easter. But it’s a Belgian thing. The government is trying to export this very interesting event now to other countries. Here’s an attempt to introduce OSSD in India.

We’ll see what the future will bring. Anyway, I have to go now, celebrating the last hours of this very special day.

About being late for a meeting ...

I had to attend this meeting in Brussels.

I was doing this huge project, a merger of 3 companies into 1 and we had lots of meetings with all kind of people in our group. It was a tough job but it was lots of fun apart from being threatened with dead, heart problems and hair turning all grey.

Anyway, I had to attend this meeting in Brussels. Most of the meetings were about budget, document management, ERP, extranet, intranet … But this meeting was with senior execs from HQ and they didn’t send an agenda so I didn’t had a clue what it was about.

I was driving to Brussels and the weather was awful. It was snowing and I ended up in huge traffic jams. I figured out I would be late so I was rather stressed.

Then I saw this very cute car … COOP COOP … Oh my god, so cute … it was the car my friend totally was in love with. A Mini Cooper. I was thinking, hmm, what if I catch it and give it to my friend ? Little voices in my head started to scream “catch it Ren, catch it catch it catch it catch it …”

The thing is, I always listen to voices in my head, because most of the time it’s just me thinking. So I started to chase the cute Mini Cooper. I wanted it so badly. My friend would love it !

I started to chase it, but it was fààààst. I had to do my best Michael Schumacher to follow it. I chased it for hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks, but in the end I lost it. I was very disappointed, my friend would be all sad. Then I decided to go back. Hmm, what was I up to ? OH MY GOD, THE MEETING. Oh gosh, I completely forgot about that. I would be lààààààààte !!

I rushed back to Brussels, looked at my watch … only 10 minutes and 3 weeks too late. When I came into the board room, everyone was already there. They all were wearing beards and they smelled … ugh !!

“You’re late, mister !”

“Yeah yeah, couldn’t help it, snow storm and traffic jams. Sowee”

They nodded and started the meeting.

I didn’t prepare a thing. I had my laptop with my files in OneNote, about document management, my budgets, ERP, all the stuff but as I didn’t had a clue what this meeting was about, I was totally unprepared.

One old guy stood up, stroked his beard and started talking “As Ren has finally arrived, we can start the meeting. Gentlemen, this is an important gathering. Today, we’re here to discuss, not the budgets, not document management, even not the enterprise resource management but … CUPCAKES ! Cupcakes I tell you !! “

Then they started this discussion about cupcakes and in the end they chose to have cupcakes with little flowers on. I was thinking about all the things that happened, how I let my friend down by not being able to catch the cooper and I was rather sad. Business is hard business …

About working in the garden ...

Hi. My name is Flo. I’m Ren’s daughter. My dad asked me to write this post for him. It’s about working in the garden.


First of all, I speak Dutch. Dad always told me that it’s important in life to speak at least one language. I don’t speak English for the moment though. But I have this virtual team to make it happen. One guy is a translator, one a centrifuge and one scratches my back. If ever you see spelling mistakes, it’s because of the translator (German – Swedish, so no English).

Working in the garden. Let me start with a pic of my dad, working …

That’s him, he’s operating a brush cutter. We have this huge garden and from time to time it needs its brush cutted (the garden that is). We used to have a cow but it fell of the stairs and died in our living room so now my dad is in charge of brush management. We also have other animals : 2 cats, 3 baby geese and 512 ants.

Brush cutters have sharp blades. They need to have sharp blades to cut the grass and the brush. There’s also a manual. It’s says something like don’t operate the cutter when drunk. My dad never reads manuals. He thinks he knows it all.

So he was brush cutting. I took some pics :

The grass

Something went wrong. Sharp blades ?

Really wrong ! He ruined our tire swing :-(

DAAAAAAAAAAAAD !!!!!!!!!

GRASS !!!! NOT TREES !!!! Neighbour is not gonna like it ...

 

Ok, that does it. Give that thing to me.

I forced him to give the brush cutter to me. And even that went wrong.

So he asked me to write this post for him ...

About the rather broken cat ...

The cat was rather broken. She was lying there and was making this weird sound. It wasn’t a “meow” anymore, it sounded more like “epitheton ornans”, so definitely no “meow”. Perhaps she was studying Greek poetry but cats don’t study Greek poetry (only modern literature by exception) so I guess my imagination was acting up again. But the thing is, she did make a weird sound and she was lying there, not moving anymore. I took a pic.

I poked her. She didn’t react. Ok, poking a cat on her facebook page isn’t perhaps the brightest idea so I poked her in real life. She gave me a look like “Ren, don’t poke me. I know you want to play with me, I know you want to throw away something and expect me to bring it back but I’m not a dog … I’m a cat. So get lost. I’m lying here and my “meow” sounds like “hendiadys”. There’s something wrong with me.”

Something was wrong with my cat.

Suddenly I got scared. Oh my god, I didn’t want to lose my cat. I loved her so much, she was an inspiration for 1001 bedtime stories for the kids, she’d always been part of the family.

I had to do something …

I logged on to Twitter and sent a message to my daughter Flo. Flo is 11 years old now and wants be a vet. She loves to watch all those animals shows on TV, she has the Playmobil Pony Ranch and she dissects flies, ants, mice and elephants.

Renaat Yo Flo, something wrong with the old cat. Can you have a look at her ?
7 minutes ago via web

MercilessTerminator @Renaat Hey oldie, you’re sitting next to me. Stop using Twitter to communicate with me.
7 minutes ago via web

So we went outside and Flo had a look at the cat. She started to examine the animal with her stethoscope, pulled the tail, pinched her nose, whispered “Diwali Riddim” in her ear and then smiled.

“I know what the problem is, dad.”

{o,o}
)__)
-"-"-
O RLY?

“Yes dad, and stop answering me in ascii-art.”

“Ok ok, sowee, now what is the problem ?”

“She’s low on batteries. I’ll change them so she’ll be alive and kicking again.”
She opened the cat’s rear panel and changed the batteries.

The cat is fine again. And I’m sure my daughter will make a great vet in a few years.

About becoming famous and succesful by meeting me ...

It’s a weird thing. The people who cross my path of life always become successful. I really can’t help it. My wife recently won one of the most important writers’ prizes in Belgium, my friend S. is a hot shot manager in London, my friend S. (no, not relative to the other S.) is a famous fashion journalist, there’s Gretch who’s just famous and Obama is the president of the United States now. But this story is really weird !

It happened when I was shopping with the kids in this super market. Shopping is rather stressful. When you put too much beer in your shopping cart, you might run into someone you know and that person might notice the beer and might point at you, yelling “you alcoholic” and turn his back on you forever. Same goes for buying Playboy (unless you hide it under a newspaper or a bag of potatoes). Then there’s the kids, running around so you lose them, whining for candy, putting things in other people’s cart (condoms, beer, Playboy, … ), scaring old women by shouting ‘boo’, … and other stressful things (note to myself – write another story about that).

I lost the kids so that gave me some quality time with myself. There was this nice woman, promoting some kind of pudding. She wanted me to taste … so I did. It was very yum ! After this I tasted her pudding too. She told me there was this promotion, a price reduction of one €. I wasn’t really worried about money, I just had returned my empties which gave me a 2K bonus so I decided to tease her a bit …

“This pudding is very yum ! I’m taking some packs.”

She smiled at me. She had very nice teeth … 32 (I counted them).

“Hey wait a minute. These are 4-packs. I have a wife and 3 kiddos so I need a 5-pack.”

She was rather confused. “But but but sir, these always come in 4-packs.”

“Oh really ? And what do I have to do then ? Give one kid away for adoption ? Get a divorce ? Make someone unhappy ? I want a 5-pack !”

“But sir, you could take 2 4-packs. That’s 8 in total.”

“You’re kidding ? That even makes things worse. The first day everyone would have a pudding, but the second day … ! Did you think about that ? Only 3 left ? 2 kids unhappy ?”

She was almost crying, that poor girl. She didn’t look very clever to me so I stopped teasing her and bought 2 4-packs anyway.

I saw her back recently. She was dressed in a fancy business outfit and driving this expensive car. When she saw me, she smiled big and started to talk to me.

“Oh my god, Ren, so good to see you back. The most amazing things have happened to me. After meeting you, I raised the idea of the 5-pack in the next sales meeting. Everybody was so excited and I got a huge promotion. The 5-pack was a big hit and our sales boomed. And now I’m the worldwide sales director.” She kissed the tip of my nose and left my life.

It’s weird. When I tell a joke, someone gets succesful. When I marry a woman, she gets famous. When I send an e-mail to someone, when I chat with someone, when I tweet with someone, these things happen. I don’t get it. I wonder if this also goes for reading my blog ? So can you keep me posted ? Please ?

About Twitter ...

I love Twitter (ok, I love a lot of other things like London, Maastricht and industrial quantities of beer but now it’s about Twitter). I started to use Twitter in 1789, during the French revolution. Here’s my very first tweet :


Renaat OMG Storming of the Bastille. Guys, this is huge !
About 221 years ago via pigeons

Marianne @Renaat awfull !! let’s burn something !! #revolution
About 221 years ago via smoke signals

Then I forgot about Twitter for some years until I found it back under my sofa. I used it to stay in touch with a nice oriental woman but she became all famous and dropped me. Twitter landed in the trashcan again.

I became all crazy about pong and did very well (3 times world champion, 5 times European champion and 107 times Belgian champion) but all the time I felt something was missing …

Third time I rediscovered Twitter I was kinda drunk. I wanted to surf to youp***.com but mistyped the word and ended up at the micro blogging site again.

I can’t stop using it. I’m all addicted. I’m tweeting from dusk till dawn now, I’m following awesome people and sites, I stopped talking to my wife and the kids, they have to tweet their stories now and I reply (or block them if they’re nagging and stuff). I have 8 accounts (professional, personal, silly, nice, artistic, naughty and erotic – ok, it’s 7, you DID pay attention). I connected all the stuff around me to Twitter : my toaster (“Ren, your toast is ready”), my TV (“yo lazy guy, that’s 6 hours you’re watching day time TV, go outside”) and Twitter itself (which caused a giant loop and it was almost the end of the internet.

I feel happy with all those messages. I smile when receiving a DM, I laugh with funny tweets, I know when my toast is ready and I go outside after watching way too long day time TV. And I tweet back, I tweet and I tweet and I tweet …

But something’s wrong now. A week ago, I woke up and something was tickling on my back. I tried to scratch but I wasn’t flex enough so I asked my wife. She turned all pale : “OMG REN, YOU’VE GOT SOME BLUE FEATHERS ON YOUR BACK”. She was right. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw all those feathers. It was awful. To forget about this, I tweeted even more. Some days later I was all covered with nice blue feathers.

I’m sleeping on a wire now and I eat bird seed. The doctor told me to stop tweeting but I already told him I won’t do it. Hey, I’ve been offered a job in Sesame Street !

About something ...

“I can do this”.


I laugh, smile at her and answer “No, you can’t do it.”

She looks at me, quite upset, and repeats “I can do it. Of course I can do it.”

“No Voy, you can’t do it. It’s difficult. Besides, how old are you ?”

Voy crosses her arms and looks away “meh”.

“Well, how old are you ?”

“Age doesn’t have anything to do with this. I read books and blogs about it and I watched youtube movies so I’m sure I can do it.”

“Voy, you’re 4 months old. You’re a baby. Babies can’t do this.”

She makes me laugh with her angry face. I duck in time, her fist just smashes air and her pico chagi misses me as well.

“Wow, that was awesome. Can you do that again ?” I take my camera and wait.

She sighs. “Ren, you should be more supportive, you should say something like ‘yes, you can do it, Voy’. Besides, how old are you ?”

“I’m 2 years old. Too old. What am I doing here ? I should have left long ago.”

Now it’s her turn to smile at me. “No Ren, it’s good you’re still here. And we can do this together. I’m sure we can.”

Yes we can. I take my wallet, count the Linden dollars and hire some great script writers.

Of course we can do this together …

About meeting an alien ...

I’m evil. I’m plain evil. My breath smells and I probably have weapons of mass destruction in my garage. Nuff said !


That night I was being interviewed by Vogue. The interviewer was a gorgeous lady, black hair, black eyes, beauty spot under her nose and very yummy lips. I can’t remember why I was being interviewed by Vogue, I was rather drunk and stuff.

Then this alien entered the place. I looked over my shoulder, saw the strange creature and greeted him : “Zwop !”

The alien was surprised. He looked at me, smiled and returned my greeting :”Zwop !”

I ordered some more drinks, for the gorgeous interviewer, the alien and me.

“Zwop !” said the alien, “zwop zwop zwop, zwop zwop !”.

Haha, joker. I returned with “zwop zwop, zwop zwop zwop zwop. Zwop zwop zwop. Zwop zwop zwop, zwop zwop zwop zwop zwop.”

“Zwop zwop zwop, zwop zwop ?” did he ask me.

“Zwop zwop, zwop zwop zwop zwop.” Hmm, perhaps this answer wasn’t that polite, but hey, I was drunk.

The alien turned all purple with yellow spots and a green line on his face, scratched behind his ear (the 4th from the left) and answered “Zwop zwop zwop zwop. Zwop zwop, zwop zwop zwop.”

Ok. I know. I can be such a *** sometimes. I looked at him with my strange look on my face and continued “zwop zwop zwop, zwop zwop zwop zwop !! Zwop zwop, zwop zwop zwop zwop !!”

This time I had gone too far. There was this blue steam coming out of his 44 ears and he started to yell “Zwop !” all the time. I laughed at him to stimulate his anger. Then he wanted to fight with me. He opened his Prada handbag, got some chess board and arranged the pieces. Haha, I played Ruy Lopez opening and beat him in no time.

Well done, Ren. The poor alien went out of his mind and crawled outside to go back to his space ship. I ordered another beer (the interviewer had left my life) and followed him. OMG, he had a parking ticket ! His space ship was parked in front of the fire exit. I was rolling on the floor laughing. He shaked his 17 fists at me then boarded his ship. He flew away. I’ve never seen him back.

People and aliens come and go in my life. It’s a sad thing and there’s nothing I can do about it. I guess it’s me. But I try to keep the good memories. Like the parking ticket … priceless !!

About my London ...

I love London. Did you know I love London ? Well, before I said it of course. And I guess you didn’t know it before I said it (well, wrote it … damn). Because it was a secret. Only a few people knew I love London. And there was this omertà. No one was allowed to talk about it.

I love London more than any other city. I love London 65% more than Brussels for example, 45% more than Manilla, 25% more than Paris, 15% more than Bombay (never been there though so it’s a rough guess) and 5% more than Maastricht (phewww, that was a close one, ok ok, I also love Maastricht but it’s too late to start over again now).

I love London. I would love to kiss London and give it a big hug. Then I would take London out for dinner and we would have scampi’s and lots of wine, we would get drunk and perhaps make love (let me think about that).

The thing is, I have to take the Eurostar in Brussels to go to London. And the trip takes like 3 hours. That’s too long. I’m a busy manager in real life and can’t afford to lose like 6 hours to see my love.

So I decided to have my own London in my garden. Time is money, you know. No 6 hours travelling anymore, just step outside my back door and walk straight into London. I called some architects to arrange things for me.

Things are going very well. I already have a Westminster in my garden (including the university), the Big Ben is almost finished (needs some painting in the corners though) and real tourists are already invading my land. If they’re nice, we invite them to have some tea and fries with mayo with us. The only problem for the moment is the Thames. The thing is, most of the Thames is situated under water and my architects didn’t count on that. Ah well, you always forget things in such a project.

But the biggest problem is synchronicity. My people are building an exact replica but in the meantime new houses and buildings are being constructed in London. So it will never be exactly the same. Therefore I asked the people of London to wait for my London to be finished before starting new projects.

I’m all excited and I can’t wait till my London is ready. Although my wife isn’t that happy. The builders ruined her shrubbery by constructing the Gherkin on that spot. Ah well *shrugs shoulders*

About losing my Muse ...

“Ren, you didn’t post for some days”.

I know. I haven’t written anything for some days. Except for some shopping lists, a birthday card and my will. And you know why I haven’t blogged ? No ? Well, you can choose why. There are 2 possibilities. Make your own reality. Make my reality. Change history. You can do that.

First possibility. My Muse turned her back on me. I’m not a-muse-d. Ok, bad joke, see what happens when muses turn their back on people. I only needed like 3 messages from her to write a great story. She left me behind, staring at an empty wall, wondering if the spider would eat the fly or not. Of course she did ! Spiders eat flies like we eat French Belgian fries with mayonnaise (I’m from Belgium, remember). Spiders try to survive on a daily base, flies I’m not so sure. Seems like they don’t have a plan, they just fly. Spiders make webs – they’ve been thinking about that.

Anyway … I tried to replace her by kidnapping 2 random women in the street, I looked deeply in their eyes and shouted at them ‘Inspire me, women’ ! They did. They smashed their Prada handbags on my face and ran away. Now that’s a story *takes note – write – violent –story*.

Hmm, still no inspiration … a blank piece of paper … Oh no ! So I called my agent and asked him to arrange something. Now I have a ghost writing team in Switzerland, on the borders of Lake Geneva. 5 women and 3 guys (8! In total - hail to MS Calculator). They have a nice office in Montreux which costs me loads of money. I’m considering selling my kidney to pay all those expenses. But they’re good. They can write the word ‘Ghost’ in any language and any font.

Second possibility. I got arrested and spent 3 days in jail. Makes sense ? Are you choosing for this reality ? That would be weird. Are you ? Ok, fair enough, I’ll tell ya what happened.

I stole a joke. From my Muse. I guess she found out, called the police and left me. That’s how life goes. I was watching Chelsea on comedy central (I never ever watch TV) when I heard an approaching chopper. The next moment some special forces jumped through my window. I think they got hurt by doing that. I have glass in my windows and it broke down. They were bleeding and whining so I brought some of them to hospital. The ones that didn’t get hurt, arrested me later. “Ren, you stole a joke”. I just crossed my arms, looked away and whistled “The first Noel”. “Ren, it’s a crime. She’s all upset now, you already wrote a crappy story when she asked you to write something nice and now you steal her joke. Give it back !”. I put my hand on my pocket and yelled “NO !”. So I ended up in jail for some days. Then after 3 days there was lack of cells so they kicked me out.

Choose ! Make history or change it. But my Muse is gone. Unless I can make her come back. I have cookies, my breath doesn’t smell and I haven’t got weapons of mass destruction in my garage ... and I'll return her joke. Come back. I’m a nice guy. I don’t want to loose my kidney.

About the girl with tons of make-up on …

I was driving home from work after a hard day (I had been accused of being cause of some project failure, a company bankrupt and world war II) and I checked on Google Latitude if any of my friends were nearby. Looked like Henri was very close to my location so I texted him to grab some beers with me. Henri was an awesome friend. When we went out it was always big fun (except for the party when we woke up 2 days later in Paris, tied to a bed and … uhm … nevermind). Anyway, he texted me back he also was in the mood so I pulled over at a pub and we both stepped out of my car.

It was sunny and warm, so we stayed outside on the very nice terrace and ordered some beers. It was our first time here, although the pub is kinda close to my home. We weren’t alone, there was this 2 drunk women with a stupid tiny dog. They were ugly as hell (one looked like she was pregnant for 5 years now) and yelled at me the moment I tried to take a picture of them to share their ugliness on this bloggy.

A bit further, 2 girls were drinking cocktails. Their boobs reminded me of my trip to Silicon Valley, one year ago. I lost focus for some time …

…

Anyway, one of them was wearing tons of make-up. I was happy about that, because if she wasn’t wearing any, the title of the short story would be kinda stupid.

Now, you probably don’t know this, but the bar was very close to the red light district so we were guessing about the job of the girl with tons of make-up on and fake boobs. A teacher ? Maybe a nurse ? A carpenter ? Perhaps a girl that uses the word intermetatarsophalangeal bursitis in daily conversations ? But oh my god, she was wearing tons of make-up ! When she stood up to get something out of her car, her head was bouncing in every direction. The tons of make-up made her head very unstable and we were guessing weather it would fall off on the left side or the right side.

It didn’t fall off. Damn !

Henri and I were discussing our opening line (his idea was “hi”, mine was “hey”) when this Mercedes stopped next to the bar. Two pimps, dressed in suit and tie (damn, I also look like a pimp in real life) stepped out of the car and went straight to the girls. Some hugs and kisses, I lost interest and ordered another beer.

After this not much happened anymore. The girls went away with the pimps to the Mercedes, the girl with the tons of make-up on lost balance and her head banged on the car, making a big hole in it, the guys got upset and pushed her, she head-butted one of them, breaking his nose, the other one pulled a gun (pimps, you know) and shot her, she was all wet now (apparently it was a water pistol) and all the make-up started to drip off her face. It was fascinating, she was moving her head and painted ‘relativity’ from Escher on the ground with the dripping make-up. I took a pic.

Some days are different from others. Like this one. I didn’t cause world war II. That’s really mean to say that. And the project, it wasn’t my fault. It was his fault *points*, his fault *points*, his fault *points*. I’m off ! kthxbye !!

About two old guys ...

There’s two old guys talking outside. I think they’re very old, perhaps like 125 and 161 years or so (did I ever tell you I have a number fetish ? Now that’s a strange thing. If you make the sum of the numbers I drop, it’s always 8. 8 I tell ya !! *strange look on my face*. I’m obsessed with 8. Anyway, back to the old guys). I’m kinda curious about what they’re talking about so I order this eavesdropping thingy on spywebshop.be Great ! Now I can listen to what they say without being noticed.

Ok, here I go *points device to oldies*

“In my time …” crackled voice … “Zwiezwazwazwieweeeeeeee …” Hmm, looks like I have to read the manual of this thing.

*Reads* … Ah ! Now it’s working.

“Things were better in the good old days”.

“Yeah yeah, and the youth of today is lazy and fat”.

“True, and cars are destroying Mother Nature”.

“Yes, and pollution is a huge problem”.

“I agree. And the rivers are so dirty. When we were young, we went swimming in the river”.

“Modern times are crap ! Crap I tell you.”

“Yeah, to hell with modern times … they stink !!”

“Hail to the past ! Boo to today !”

“Ok, I have to go now, need my pills now”.

“Hey, nice talking, we should meet again.”

“Yes, we should meet again ! Here’s my card.”

Oldie takes the card and looks at the backside.

“Oh, QR-code, nice”.

He grabs his Blackberry and scans the code with the i-nigma reader. Beep !

“Great ! I’ll post you a message on Facebook. Bye for now”

Damn, it’s June and I’m already feeling old.

About a night in the pub ...

I walk into the pub and conversations stop and people turn around and look at me. “Omg, it’s Ren, it’s Ren”. They look at me with great expectations and now it’s up to me … I won’t let them down. I look around and smile, I cough and I whisper “antihistamine”.

A woman gasps. I hear an “Oh” and another “Ah”. An old man already has tears in his eyes.

Ha! Nice start but there’s still some work to do. I walk around, looking at the tense faces, suddenly open my mouth and say “hydrochlorothiazide”. Some girl faints, a man drops his glass, people start talking and making noise.

I climb on a chair and scream “intermetatarsophalangeal bursitis”. There they go. Everyone is yelling and screaming and dancing and running around and punching each other’s face and having sex and drinking and getting drunk and and and …

Just another ordinary night in the pub. I have a beer and decide to go home. Goodnight ! Deoxyribonucleic acid !

About the bite ...

Life can be so unfair ! A friend of mine had been bitten by an insect the day before she had to attend to a party and her elbow was all swollen. As she didn’t have a spare one, it looked like she couldn’t go to the party without being pointed at by people whispering to each other “eeeek, look at that lady, look at her elbow, oh myyyy, poor girl” … best case scenario. Worse would be a sign at the entrance “no entry for people with a swollen elbow” or “we don’t serve drinks to people with a swollen elbow”. As amputation wasn’t an option, we had to solve this problem real soon. 

I decided to start with the one who committed this crime … the insect ! As my friend had been bitten at home, I catched all the insects and bugs I could find in her house and lined them up in the local police office. They all were holding numbers but she didn’t manage to identify the one. Oh no. It probably was an insect from out of town. We needed more research. 

I was thinking about a new strategy so I started to search on the internet. After being distracted for a while (no, I won’t mention the url’s) I stumbled upon a twitter conversation like this : 

MeanInsect : Haha, I just had a juicy yummy bite in someone’s elbow
about 15 hours ago via web 

UglyBug : @MeanInsect way to go, bro. Got leftovers ?
about 15 hours ago via web in reply to MeanInsect 

MeanInsect : @UglyBug nope. But there’s still elbow left, even a lot. Elbows swell after my bites.
about 15 hours ago via web in reply to UglyBug 

MeanInsect : @UglyBug poor girl can’t go to a party now … lol
about 15 hours ago via web in reply to UglyBug 

Ha ! That was the one ! And oh my god, his tweets were geotagged ! This was too easy. I jumped into my helicopter and flew right to the place. I rushed into his house and caught him lying on his sofa, only wearing dirty underwear, surrounded by empty bottles of beer, scratching his own butt … oh wait a minute … I was looking for an insect right ? There it was, sitting on the shoulder of the drunk guy, preparing for another bite. I catched the insect and twisted his wing “You animal ! Why did you bite my friend ?? And, more important, how can we cure her in time ?” 

He moaned and screamed to leave him alone but I kept twisting his wing. “Ok, ok, Ren, I’ll tell you. The answer is straightforward. Look at this drunk guy, I’ve bitten him like a million times and he didn’t swell at all. Beer is the cure. Tell your friend to drink some beers and her elbow will be flat after some minutes.” Hmm, looked like this case had been solved. I patted his shoulder in a friendly way, wiped the blood of my hand on my shirt and went back to my friend. 

In the meantime, her elbow had been swollen even more. She even couldn’t pass through the door anymore so I went to the local brewer to get a lot of beer. 

We had big fun. She didn’t make it to the party but her elbow was all flat again. Just before falling asleep she smiled at me and whispered “So if Ke$ha was British, her name would be Ke£ha?”

About the rather damaged cat ...

I have 2 cats. People who know me know that. Other people (who don’t know me) might think I only have 1 cat or 3, or perhaps no cat at all or 100 cats (they might think I have a cat hotel). So 2 is the exact number and I’m quite sure about that because I’ve counted them this morning.

One is an old cat. I don’t know exactly the age but I guess she was living when Napoleon tried to conquer Russia … stuff … something … *coughs*. The other one is a bit younger, perhaps very young because she doesn’t say any words yet ((I swear I should quit drinking in the morning)).
The oldest cat is a grumpy cat. She always has this look on her face like she’s trying to say something like “Ren, you’re plain evil. Your breath smells and I bet you have weapons of mass destruction in your garage”. That look ! But the thing is, she’s in love with me for so long now. And yes, I have to admit … I love her too. I love to pet her, I love to read her Charles Baudelaire poems, I love to play with her and she’s also a great napkin for wiping my mouth after eating spaghetti.

The other cat is kinda boring. She sleeps and eats and that’s all. I once tried to make her more exciting by painting her blue with red lines and white dots and dressing her up like a ballerina … I failed, she remained kinda boring. Let’s forget about her for now.
Yesterday I noticed the old cat was rather damaged. She was missing some fur on her back. It was a strange view. I guess she probably got damaged by fighting another cat, the huge one from the neighbors, that mean fat ugly cat, the one I would like to *censored*

I really feel sad about the rather damaged cat. I think she’s unhappy, feeling the hole in her fur. She’s dreaming about the days she wasn’t damaged, when she was all beautiful, gorgeous, nice and grumpy. But those days are gone. My poor cat :-(

Oh – before logging off - almost forgot to tell you, this is amazing, well, even incredible ! My son is only 8 years old and he grew already a beard ! Waaaa ! And really fast ! Yesterday it wasn’t even there. I’ll call CNN … we’ll be rich and famous !!

About the house ...

A beautiful Sunday morning, croissants for breakfast, the newspaper on my lap, coffee with milk and sugar … life’s perfect ! I look at the kids and smile, 3 happy faces smile back. Then I look at my wife and she looks at me in a strange way. Oh no, this is not happening …

She opens her mouth : “Ren, the house is dirty.” Phewwww, that wasn’t that bad. I was shivering about phrases like “Ren, I totaled your new Porsche” or “Ren, I want to change gender” or even “Ren, I’m leaving you for your best friend (hmm, wouldn’t be that bad because my best friend is a gorgeous girl)”. Noooooooo, the house is dirty …

I stroke her hair and whisper in her left ear : “Oh sweetie, the house isn’t that dirty, there’s some dust on the lamps, true, there’s some mud marks on the floor and yes-i-know-i-know, there’s still the corpus of the dead cow that fell of the stairs some weeks ago but I’ll clean that up soonish.”

“Ren, you don’t get it … the house is dirty … I want a new one.”

Okay. Sometimes things change in life. You’re living your life happily, you go with the flow and then life decides to change direction.

Big deal. The woman wants a new house, let’s see what I can do. First things first, where are my tools ? I put on the lights in the garage and start looking around. What’s this ? Hmm, my asphalt plant, don’t need that now. And this ? My zoo ! Damn, forgot to feed the crocodiles the last 4 years. I push the airport aside, step over the lawn mower en there it is : my excavator ! Ha !

Goodbye house. We had good times (2 kids were born here, the 3th one, hmm, let me get back on that), we had bad times (I used to puke haiku’s on the carpet when I was drunk). You’re going down, baby ! *strokes wall, licks lips and starts the engine* (yeah yeah, emoting again, I’ve been on Second Life for far too long).

This happened 2 weeks ago. We’re living in hob units now which makes me a hobbit. The house is gone. I’m homeless, so is the family. We’re staring at the pile of bricks, waiting for some phoenix to rise from it’s ashes (although we’d prefer a house, we already have 2 cats).

Things change in life and there’s nothing we can do about it (well actually we can but that’s stuff for my new age blog and I have to go now because my wife demands sex and I don’t want to lose her to my best friend so better join them now).